Chasing the Unicorn is beginning to feel more like chasing the dragon. Like the senseless addict I find myself deliberately destroying my body for my daily fix of running in the hopes of securing the ultimate high - running a perfect race. Those who Chase the Dragon have to keep that liquid opium constantly moving, or it turns into a single coalesced lump which is useless to the addict who wishes to breathe in its fumes. In that same way marathoners have to keep moving, six days a week, for fear they will become that same unmanageable lump should they stop.
Many people sensibly stay away from the marathon for good reason. Many run it once, for the bucket list, then never return. It is hard to run the kind of training miles you need consistently over 16 weeks. Not a single run is hard, but to do it ever day is. If you do have the time to manage the training, there is a good chance that pushing yourself through so many runs will leave you injured before you even get to the start line. The half marathon is increasingly popular for most people. You can train three hard runs a week and run a really good half marathon. Not so the marathon - the Full Monty requires 5/7 days a week of hard and easy runs. It also takes at least a month to recover, so if you wake up with a bad cold on the day, or the weather is ten degrees warmer than you had planned, you really have to wait another 6 months before you can try again.
Coming to the end of week eleven, with a couple of tough weeks of peak training behind me, and the daunting view of a couple more ahead, I find myself questioning why I am so attracted to this race. One of the reasons I like it, is it the only race you can not run by 'feel'. There is a huge mental challenge to this race, and as I am somewhat lacking in physical talent, it is a race that the short and stubby of leg, but strong of mind and spirit can tackle. I truly think the body has a built in pace maker that tells you it can sustain certain paces for a certain amount of time - I can run relatively even splits without a watch for 5k, 10k and even a half marathon. For a full marathon that is beyond me and most people. There is a science to figuring out your goal pace and then how to aportion that throughout the race. For the first 10 miles you feel as though you are holding back by around 20%, then you feel like you are at the right pace for another 10, then the last 6 are usually a struggle if you have mapped out the miles correctly. That patience and that learning to restrain during the early adrenaline fueled miles of a race while hundreds are passing you is a demanding mental challenge or the competively driven runner. Go out too hard on the first downhill ten miles of Boston and you will never make the hills that start at mile 16. Go out too slow and fail to cash in on the easy downhill, and you will not make up time, even if you speed up a tad for the second half. Whilst this race really begins at mile 20, that is only true if you have run those 20 miles at the race pace. You can't fix a mistake or play catch up in this race. The most time can drop up in the last 6 miles is one or two minutes, no matter how much fuel you still have in the tank.
If you do run perfect splits in the marathon lots of things can still go devastatingly wrong. I overlaced my shoes in my last attempt. My perfect splits, the perfect weather and the flat course had me in line for a new 3.25 PR, sadly I had to stop twice and tweak the stupid lacing because in my overly zealous preparations I had tied the laces snugger than usual and by mle 12 acute pain was setting in - that cost me two whole minutes when I checked my garmin. If it had been a half marathon I would have blasted through, but that was not even conceivable when there were 13 more miles to go.
In England there is a crude expression for going number twos which is called 'doing a Paula' because our national heroine of distance running, Paula Radcliffe, famously had to take a serious dump mid race and the camera crews, uncertain of what she was up to panned down as she unceromoniously crouched in the middle of a London pavement and off loaded what had been slowing her down, before jumping up and finishing her race. Training your bowels, bladder and stomach, also becomes part of the challenge.
For the 16 weeks of training your muscles are complaining, your tendons are rubbing, inflammation, cramping, tightening of old sinews, aches and pains are a constant factor; balanced with the fact that your breathing, heart rate and ability to withstand the rigors of those miles keeps on improving, creating a bizarre ying and yang of increased fitness and creeping debilitation. The hopes that taper will somehow maintain the hard earned cardiac fitness whilst repairing the muscle damage is clung to anxiously.
Chaffing, blisters, shoelaces, lack of correct hydration and nutrition, wind, snow, heat and other runners are all waiting to scupper you in the quest to chase the unicorn. Maybe no one ever runs the perfect marathon; I am on number five and wondering how many more I have in me, but still find myself curiously attracted to it. A glimps of the mane, or a swish of his tail on Patriot's day may be enough to keep me chasing again....
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